


Focus

by halfeatenmoon



Category: Hades (Video Game 2018)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:34:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28293900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halfeatenmoon/pseuds/halfeatenmoon
Summary: Thanatos started this competition. He didn't mean for Zagreus to enjoy it so much.
Relationships: Thanatos/Zagreus (Hades Video Game)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 57
Collections: Yuletide Madness 2020





	Focus

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rethira](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rethira/gifts).



It wasn't meant to be a competition.

No, that's not true. It _was_ meant to be a contest of their skills. A contest that would prove to Zagreus that he was unprepared for the task he'd set himself, that he had not the skill to fight his way from the underworld. That he would be better off staying in the underworld, where he belonged. Thanatos knew what it was to walk between the two worlds. It wasn't for Zagreus.

Zagreus wasn't meant to _enjoy_ this.

"Four!" Zagreus cried, gleefully, as he dispatched another spear-carrying shade with his own spear's reach.

The two of them were fighting up and down one of Elysium's loveliest meadows, a beauty that Thanatos had not taken much time to enjoy. He had seen Elysium over and over again. He didn't come here for the sights.

Yet while the rolling mists of the Lethe or the gently shimmering butterflies couldn't hold his gaze, he found himself watching Zagreus. He knew he would fall behind in their contest, knew even as he was doing it that he was giving away kills to his rival, but he couldn't help himself. Just this once. He couldn't help but stare as Zagreus struck with Varatha again and again, flowing through the meadow as if the spear were directing him and Zagreus merely followed.

How had he ever thought that Zagreus wasn't up to this task?

He felt a sting at his arm, and then another. An unfamiliar sensation. He realised, with horror, that in his reverie he failed to notice that some of the gently fluttering insects around him had been dispatched by a soul catcher. He gaped in horror as he realised a whole line of butterflies were about to surround him. He would dispatch them in a moment, of course. They were no danger to him. It was the fact that he, a loyal servant of the House of Hades, had been so distracted on the job that...

That he didn't even blink away before a bright gold streak slashed through the insects surrounding him, and then the enemies were gone, the soul catcher was gone, and there was only Zagreus standing there, looking up at him.

"You seem distracted."

"I... I'll be fine!"

"I'm sure you will."

"I could have taken that out."

"Of course you could," Zagreus agreed. "Half the time I only get a kill because I stab them repeatedly after you've already marked them for death."

"Why do you _bother_?" Thanatos said, exasperated but grateful to have something to latch on to other than his own embarrassing lapse in attention.

"Because it's fun. I like competing with you. I like that I never know who's going to win." He grinned. "Actually, I like saving you. You should try getting distracted again."

"I wouldn't have been distracted if you weren't so... so good at this," he snapped.

Zagreus laughed, a lighter, more joyful sound than Thanatos remembered. Then, to his utter surprise, Zagreus took the back of his neck and pulled him down into a kiss.

Thanatos was lost, for a moment, in the rushing of a nearby waterfall and the soft sounds of the plants around them and the thrumming of mortal blood under Zagreus' immortal skin. Skin that was suddenly all over Thanatos, pressed up against him, so that even in this place of death he was overwhelmed by so much life.

Then there was a sharp, singing sound as Varatha sprang back into Zagreus' hand, recalled to him without him even looking. He barely stepped away from before he hurled the spear over Thanatos' shoulder and clean through the archer who had been aiming right at them.

"Again?" Thanatos said, in disbelief.

"There," Zagreus said, as he stepped back. "Now I know you've got your focus back."

"Excuse me?"

Varatha sprang back to Zagreus' hand, and he coiled himself to leap at the next wave of shades. "I said, now you've got your focus back. It's no fun winning when you're not even trying."

"I didn't... I wasn't..."

" _Focus_ ," Zagreus repeated. "I'm leading by seven now. You've got some catching up to do."

Then he leaped, and became a blur of movement again, one that Thanatos could barely follow. He hefted his scythe, looked at the horde before them, and found himself smiling. Perhaps, indeed, these contests weren't just a failed plan that he was too proud to give up. Perhaps they could indeed be 'fun'.


End file.
